For Leika Kihara's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Even as Japan has stressed that the Olympics will proceed as planned, government and central bank officials are more seriously weighing the risk of cancellation when making projections for this year's economic outlook, sources said. The Bank of Japan is expected to loosen monetary policy ...
Will the world's big central banks leave U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hanging? They're certainly going to try. No major central bank has yet matched the Fed's emergency rate cut in response to the coronavirus outbreak, and there is mounting evidence that its counterparts ...
The Bank of Japan has nearly exhausted its policy ammunition for boosting the economy, as deepening negative interest rates — seen as the most likely step if it were to expand stimulus — will do more harm than good, former BOJ Deputy Gov. Toshiro ...
The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady on Thursday as expected but offered a stronger signal it may cut interest rates in the future, underscoring its concern that overseas risks could derail the country's fragile economic recovery. The decision came hours after the U.S. ...
If it needs to ease monetary policy, the Bank of Japan will ‘certainly’ reduce short- to medium-term interest rates, Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda says.
In late January 2016, the lights were on well past midnight on the seventh floor of the Bank of Japan's headquarters. Inside, a handful of bureaucrats were working on a shock plan. It was almost three years into central bank Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda's audacious campaign ...
As years of near-zero interest rates in Japan make traditional lending barely profitable, one regional bank is seeking to drum up business through less conventional enterprises, from opening wine bars to helping fishermen farm sea urchins. The new approach comes as regulators cautiously loosen the ...
From sleepy New Zealand hillsides to sleek Tokyo dining scenes, a bottle of Hawke's Bay wine shipped to Japan traces an arc that exporters like Nigel Avery see as an avenue for multimillion dollar growth built on a free trade pact. Avery's Sileni Estates hopes ...
Despite calls to resist protectionism and for the United States to rejoin a multilateral trans-Pacific trade pact, Japan is gradually shifting gear to adjust to a trade environment shaken up by U.S. President Donald Trump. Japan ramped up its warning over the damage protectionism could ...
Japan will have little choice but to enter into a bilateral trade deal with the United States similar to one President Donald Trump clinched with South Korea, a former top currency diplomat from Japan said. Naoyuki Shinohara, who was also deputy managing director at the ...
